Name: Food Packaging Technology: Materials, Barrier Properties and Specifications
Price: 1950.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock

About Course

Most packaging failures trace back to one property that was not specified, not checked or not delivered. A lid that lifts at the corner, a pouch that lets dried fruit go hard before its date, a case that folds at the bottom of a chilled pallet. Pull the specification and it often says ’peelable seal’, ’food grade’ or ’strong’, with no number, no method and no tolerance. This course teaches you to choose the material and write the line that would have stopped it.

After 12 hours you will be able to:

Shortlist paper and board, plastics, metal and glass on oxygen, water vapour and light barrier data, then confirm shelf life by a storage trial on the product in its pack
Read OTR and WVTR results with their test conditions (ASTM D3985, ASTM F1249, ISO 15105, ISO 15106) and tell when two data sheets cannot be compared
Read a laminate structure from outside to inside and talk to a converter about sealant, cure release, retained solvent and limitations of use
Write a packaging specification with a method, conditions, limit and frequency on every line, to BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9, BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7 and ISO 22002-4:2025

Who it is for. New packaging technologists, buyers, QA and QC staff, NPD staff and converter sales staff. It is a foundation course: no packaging background is needed.

No site to practise on? Every activity runs on Mzansi Pack, a fictional Gauteng converter built from real audit patterns. The packaging specification builder loads the case, flags every line that cannot be measured and exports the workbook you submit.

What R1 950 buys. 34 lessons in 7 modules, self-paced online, with 7 knowledge checks, 7 games, the specification builder, a workshop assignment marked within minutes and a proctored final assessment. Pass mark 70 percent, three attempts each, feedback after every failed attempt. Weigh the price against one wrong line: a day of lidded meals written off, a pallet of cases sent back by a distribution centre, a shelf life cut short by a thinner film nobody trialled.

Is it accredited? It is a non-credit-bearing short course. You receive a QR-verified certificate your employer can use in its competence records and an auditor can check online. For a team, buy several places in one order or ask for a team quote and pay by invoice.

Course Content

Module 1: What packaging must do: protect, preserve, inform, sell
The four jobs of a food pack, the levels of packaging, how a pack holds the conditions that keep food safe and sound, who owns the words on it, and a first map of the four material families.

The four jobs of a pack, and who pays when one fails
Protect: keeping the outside world out
Preserve: the pack holds the conditions
Inform, sell and a first map of the materials
Module 1 knowledge check
Which job failed?

Module 2: Paper and board, including corrugated
How paper and board are built from fibre, why they need coatings for barrier, what can migrate from recycled board, how corrugated board carries a stack, and how to test and specify board for a cold chain.

Module 3: Plastics and flexible laminates
The polymers a food buyer meets, PET, rPET and CPET in trays, how films are made and combined, what adhesives and coatings add, how to read a laminate structure, and how resin codes and recycling work in South Africa.

Module 4: Metal cans, closures and foil
Tinplate, chromium coated steel and aluminium. How cans and ends are made. What internal coatings do and what the EU bisphenol rules now require. Aluminium foil, pinholes and thickness. Metal closures.

Module 5: Glass containers and closures
What container glass is made of, what its colour does for light, how bottles and jars are formed and where defects come from, how a food line manages glass breakage, and how to specify a glass container and its closure.

Module 6: Barrier properties, product and pack interaction, and shelf life
What permeation is and how it is measured, typical published barrier ranges and how to shortlist on them, what the product does to the pack through scalping, light and corrosion, and how to confirm shelf life by storage trials on the product in its pack.

Module 7: Packaging specifications that a supplier can be held to
What BRCGS Food Safety Issue 9, BRCGS Packaging Materials Issue 7 and ISO 22002-4:2025 expect of packaging specifications, the sections of a complete specification, how to write limits that can be measured, and how to agree, test and review a specification with a supplier.

Assignment, final assessment and course review
Your practical assignment on your own site or on Mzansi Pack, then the final assessment. Your certificate is released when every assessment is passed and your course review is submitted.

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About Course

What Will You Learn?

Course Content

Module 1: What packaging must do: protect, preserve, inform, sell The four jobs of a food pack, the levels of packaging, how a pack holds the conditions that keep food safe and sound, who owns the words on it, and a first map of the four material families.

The four jobs of a pack, and who pays when one fails

Protect: keeping the outside world out

Preserve: the pack holds the conditions

Inform, sell and a first map of the materials

Module 1 knowledge check

Which job failed?

Module 2: Paper and board, including corrugated How paper and board are built from fibre, why they need coatings for barrier, what can migrate from recycled board, how corrugated board carries a stack, and how to test and specify board for a cold chain.

From fibre to board: what you are buying

Barrier on board, and what migrates from recycled fibre

Corrugated board: flutes, walls and the stack

Testing and specifying board

Board in the cold chain, and recovering it

Module 2 knowledge check

Pick the board test

Module 3: Plastics and flexible laminates The polymers a food buyer meets, PET, rPET and CPET in trays, how films are made and combined, what adhesives and coatings add, how to read a laminate structure, and how resin codes and recycling work in South Africa.

The polymers a buyer meets

PET, rPET and CPET in Hall B

How films are made: blown, cast, oriented and coextruded

Laminates: adhesives, cure, metallising and thin coatings

Reading a laminate like a converter

Resin codes and recycling in South Africa

Module 3 knowledge check

Name that layer

Module 4: Metal cans, closures and foil Tinplate, chromium coated steel and aluminium. How cans and ends are made. What internal coatings do and what the EU bisphenol rules now require. Aluminium foil, pinholes and thickness. Metal closures.

Tinplate, ECCS and aluminium

How cans and ends are made

Can coatings, porosity and the EU bisphenol rules

Aluminium foil: barrier, pinholes and thickness

Metal closures and ends

Module 4 knowledge check

Can or can’t?

Module 5: Glass containers and closures What container glass is made of, what its colour does for light, how bottles and jars are formed and where defects come from, how a food line manages glass breakage, and how to specify a glass container and its closure.

What container glass is

How bottles and jars are made, and where defects come from

Glass on the food line

Specifying a glass container and its closure

Module 5 knowledge check

Glass call

Permeation and its units

Measuring barrier: the test methods

Typical barrier ranges and how to shortlist

When the product works on the pack: scalping, light and set-off

Corrosion and can lacquers: when the product attacks the can

Confirming shelf life on the product in its pack

Module 6 knowledge check

Barrier or not?

What the standards ask of a specification

Anatomy of a packaging specification

Writing limits that can be measured

Agreeing, testing and holding the supplier to it

Module 7 knowledge check

Measurable or not?

Assignment, final assessment and course review Your practical assignment on your own site or on Mzansi Pack, then the final assessment. Your certificate is released when every assessment is passed and your course review is submitted.

Your assignment and the course tool

Workshop assignment: write a packaging specification a supplier can be held to

Final assessment: Food Packaging Technology: Materials, Barrier Properties and Specifications